


I’ve loved you for lightyears

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Long Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a lot of space out there so they have to hang onto the bit that’s theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ve loved you for lightyears

**Author's Note:**

> betaed by Stellarer who made sure there wasn’t any accidental cannibalism. Thanks dear. You were right.

There’s a lot of space out there so they have to hang onto the bit that’s theirs.

They’re both on their first postings, both the type given to youngsters to prove their mettle. The service wants to see who’s gonna stick before they give out any real responsibility. They’re dull postings, both aggressively boring. Even worse than that, they’re very far apart.

John is closer to civilization, maybe too close. He’s with an old squadron, that used to be proud, that used to be important, but they don’t really have much to do in a time of relative peace. This means that the Rangers aren’t off ranging, and they’re enough to look after the planet ordinarily. They get all the prestige and excitement, while the Isles weave between the different moons, asteroids, and space junk. They’re stuck with an aging base and the least glamorous assignments. There has been talk about restructuring and relocation, but this is the public service. It will happen slowly, if it happens at all. Til then John will do the best he can with the little they have.

Fuck the public service.

Fuck the public service? Sounds like fun, but not the most reasonable plan. It’s too big, too old, so entrenched in the process of civilization, colonization, _life._ They need to do something about the public service, they can’t just tell it to go to hell.

Maybe someone else could, but they can’t. Military families, both of them. John’s uncle and namesake is a commander in the ground forces, which isn’t the same. The barren frontier of alien lands is nothing like the stars. But the service is still the service, and it was an inspiration. John grew up wanting to earn the same sort of medals to pin to his chest. Sam grew up a space base brat, bouncing from system to system with his dad’s different postings. He met John somewhere along the way, so far back that it’s hard to recall. For whatever reason it wasn’t just another new friend in a new town. For whatever reason John stuck. Sam doesn’t know what that reason is, but he’s glad that they found something in each other that kept them close. They got older, together and apart, through youth services, junior cadets, until finally it would be their time to go out in the stars.

Sam got there first. He turned eighteen and put his name in the draft that determines first posting. He held his breath and waited for the machine to spit out his future: Edmonton. He’s serving in Edmonton.

They call it Oil Country because it faces the inky black of empty space. Sam flies patrols weaving through pioneer planets, freshly bioformed and mostly unsettled. He’s given responsibilities because there isn’t anyone older or better around to get shit done. Everyone with the seniority to transfer out has done so. It might be a good assignment a few years down the line. The action in the area will pick up and he’ll be in a prime position to make a good impression. Until then he can try not to get too loopy, holding off the pressure of space with gossip and conversation.

They talk whenever they can. Sam has better stories to share. He flies with a bunch of hot shot kids who spend their free time doing dumb shit. It makes good gossip, full of pranks and fuck ups, unlike John’s quiet life.

Sometimes John goes down to the city to see a show or do some shopping. Sometimes he just wants to be overwhelmed by humanity. He used to be a person who needed to maintain separation. He used to place his personal space at a premium. Living in a hollow echoing station facing out to the stars has changed all that. He isn’t comfortable recognizing how space has transformed him. He doesn’t like knowing that something that happened to his mind entirely outside his control.

Sam get it. Sam feels it too. They can talk about it. Sam says, “I had an afternoon free, and I went down to the West Ed Mall, which—it’s the fucking largest shopping center in five sectors. It’s full of lots of people who are trying to buy things, families, civilians, _ordinary people_. Mostly I spend my time with just a few people and if they’re trying to do anything it’s probably something stupid, like trying to do better loop-de-loops, because they like to do dumb tricks to impress each other instead of just getting their shit together and hooking up.”

John has heard all about this, he’s been hearing about it for actual literal earth-years now. “That’s kind of sad.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “If the boy I liked flew on the same line as me I would totally show off for you, but then when we got back we’d have sex.”

“You’d do loops for me?” John asks, a bit flattered.

“Damn straight I would—but _only_ if you did tricks too.”

“Tricks for tricks? Fair trade,” John says, and it hits him, how badly he wishes that he and Sam were in the same place, where they could fly together and touch each other’s bodies.

“But anyway,” Sam says, getting the conversation back on course, pulling John away from that dangerous train of thought. “I was at the mall, and there were all these people, all this selling and buying, and I could hardly remember how much I used to hate this shit. Now it’s like, comforting. Humanity, with all its consuming glory, is just swell.”

They need all the comfort they can get, including each other, offering comfort digitally from very many light years away.

Their sleep patterns fall in and out of sync. The core and associated territories stick to an old-earth standard twenty-four hour cycle, the whole system synced to Greenwich mean time for simplicities sake. Out in the boonies Sam’s in orbit around a planet that does twenty-nine hour days which the services splits into three overlapping shifts that the crews rotate through. It means that sometimes it’s easy to find time to talk, but other times it’s impossible.

Hopefully in a few years it will get easier, but they can tough it out for now. They’re going to do what’s asked of them. They’re going to fulfil their commitment to the public service. They’re going to get through these development years, which are lean in terms of comfort or prestige, but they’re learning a lot. The things they’re learning are going to be useful soon enough. They’re getting smarter and more powerful. Eventually there will be a chance for them to start changing things. They’re going to make it better, as best they can.

Not yet though. Right now they’re stuck on shit details in different galaxies and it sucks a lot. But this is bigger than the two of them and the distance between them. This is about space. Humanity’s everywhere, scattered across planets, spread among the stars.

All that space needs people looking after it, and it might as well be them. Space viewed on that grand scale is a whole lot more important than the space between them. They can miss each other now, feel lonely knowing that they’re looking at different stars. They can put up with any inconvenience because it isn’t just about them. There are worlds to consider. It doesn’t stop them from missing each other. Calls like these can only help so much.

“I have to go pretty soon,” Sam says. “There’s a session thing, they want to talk to us about _strategies _. Strategies for something. I wasn’t really paying attention to the announcement.”__

__John laughs at him, but it’s friendly. “Yeah, and I should go to sleep pretty soon.”_ _

__“What time is it there?” Sam asks. He doesn’t even_ try_ to keep track.

“Like twenty-three hundred? Quarter after.”

“And you have that thing in the morning. You should totally go to sleep.”

“I know. I’m tired.”

“Then why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Well, I was talking to you.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, I wanted to talk to you.”

They always want to talk to each other — that goes unsaid.

“Goodnight Johnny. Sweet dreams.”

“Goodnight Sammy.”

“You should dream about me.”

“That would be a fucking nightmare,” John says.

“That would be _beautiful._ You would be lucky to dream about my face.”

‘“Yeah, yeah, you’re an absolute beauty. You and the Nassau lights, the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” That’s the truth.

“Yeah, yeah. Goodnight. Sleep well.”

“I’ll try. Have a good strategy session.”

“I’ll try.”

They’re so bad at saying goodnight. It’s almost like saying goodbye. They’re even worse at that. They’re good at separation, they’ve got a handle on their separation, but they’re real bad at anything that points out their separate existences. They’re good at ignoring it, at pretending it doesn’t matter. There are a whole lot of other things in the vastness of space that are better to pay attention to than their separation.

When they’re faced with the problem of saying goodnight, of saying goodbye for now, that’s when the Public Service doesn’t matter. Flying doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Only they matter, just the two of them and the same dumb conversations they’ve been having for a decade plus.

Only all that stuff does matter, it matters a lot, enough to make the daily intimacy they’re sacrificing worth it. They just have to remember that the world isn’t just them. There are planets and stars, whole systems, a whole universe, so much space to worry about, while they’re just two people, even if they are in love.

**Author's Note:**

> I really like thinking about the idea of Sam and John in space, because it’s an au that allows them to be so so far apart, and that’s interesting. So I started writing this, which isn’t a real story. It’s a fragment of world building and conversation. I wish I had the time/energy/inspiration to do this idea justice, but I don’t. Anyway. I hope you liked it anyway. Constructive criticism/general thoughts are greatly appreciated.


End file.
